Grandpa Gibbs, The Sorcerer
by NewHampshireGirl
Summary: The DiNozzo children and the McGee twins try to figure out how Grandpa Gibbs gets the boat out of the basement. Set in the "Unconditionally" verse. Cute, fluffy one shot!


**Disclaimers:** I don't own NCIS or its characters. They belong to CBS and show creators.

 **Warnings:** Extreme fluff, cute kids overload. Mentions of Tony/OC. Implied McGee/Delilah.

 **A/N:** I haven't really written anything new in this verse for a long time, but a review on "Tiny Additions" prompted this story. Thanks **None** for the idea :) Hope you enjoy this little piece of fluff. It takes place a few years into the future after "Tiny Additions". Enjoy!

* * *

 **Grandpa Gibbs, the Sorcerer**

Grace DiNozzo, all of three years old, stood at the top of the basement step glancing down. It wasn't that she was afraid of stairs, or that she didn't want to join her older brother and her friends with Grandpa, it was... basements were scary, scary places.

Her hand was wrapped tightly around her _Beauty and the Beast_ cup, little fingers covering up Belle's face. She was dressed in leopard print leggings and a black long sleeve tee shirt and her blond, curly hair was pulled into two pigs with black bows. She heard big footsteps behind her but didn't flinch. Big footsteps meant that Daddy was nearby. Sure enough her father knelt down besides her.

"What are you doing up here?" Tony asked his little girl. "I thought you were going to go downstairs and help Grandpa on the boat."

"Basements are scary, Daddy," Grace whimpered, hugging her cup of chocolate milk.

"Not Grandpa's basement, princess," he told her, reassuringly. "No way any monster is going to live down there. They'd be scared of Grandpa!"

Grace blinked her large, green eyes. She really looked more like her mother with her little button nose and angled jawline, but her eyes were all her father. "Really, Daddy? There's no monsters down there in Grandpa's basement?"

Tony shook his head. "I've been down there lots of times, princess. Never saw a monster." Laughter and giggles from children could be heard coming up the stairs. Tony rubbed his daughter's back, soothingly. "Sounds like your brother, Victoria, Theo and Samantha are all having fun down there. Maybe you should go join them?"

She reached out and took a hold of the railing and took one step. After that first step she gained a bit more confidence and made her way down the rest of the steps into the basement. The children—six year old Victoria, five and half year old Jack, and three year old twins Theo and Samantha—were crowded around Grandpa Gibbs work bench learning how to sand the wood. Grace glanced up the stairs to see that Daddy had disappeared, probably back to the living room where he was relaxing with Mommy, Uncle Tim, Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Breena.

Jack was the first to greet his little sister. "Gracie! Come here, I can show you how to sand this!"

Grandpa gently reached out and corrected Jack's movements. "Remember what I said? You sand with the grain." He held a piece of sand paper out to Grace and let her touch it before picking her up and standing her on the frame of the boat. He knew she hated basements. It was a big step for her to come down those stairs and join them. He kissed her cheek and helped her sand the beams in front of him.

"Hey, Grandpa?" Theo asked, suddenly stopping his sanding. He looked up in deep thought, "When we're done the boat... how are we going to get it out of the basement?"

* * *

"Daddy?" Grace asked as Tony tucked her into bed that night. "How does Grandpa get the boat out of the basement?"

"I'll be darned if I know," he chuckled. "One of Grandpa's many secrets. Mommy and Daddy are proud of you today, princess, for going down into the basement with Grandpa."

Grace pulled her blanket up to her chin. Her mother had left that night on a trip to Europe, Jack and Theo had stayed at Grandpa Gibbs' house for a boy's night, and Grace had gotten to spend the rest of the evening with her Daddy after they dropped Mommy off at the airport. Her father seemed a bit sad... "Daddy? Do you miss Mommy?"

Tony ran his thumb over his cheek. Leah had limited her traveling since the children had been born but every so often she couldn't pass up the chance to go do a dig. She was going to be gone for three weeks rummaging around in a recent ancient village unearthed in Scotland. "Yes. I do."

"Maybe you can come sailing with us? Grandpa says that the boat will be ready soon," Grace replied. "Have you ever been sailing, Daddy?"

"Once, a very, very long time ago," Tony recalled. He wouldn't count any of his trips out to Navy ships sailing. "Papa took me fishing when I was a little boy."

Grace wanted to stay up and hear her father tell her stories but it was getting late. Tony leaned over and gave her another little kiss goodnight. He made sure that her nightlight was on, and her door slightly ajar before leaving. She was asleep before he even made it to the stairs to go back into the living room.

Tony chuckled to himself, thinking about her questions. Grace was a curious child, always question the world around her, exploring... in some ways she was a little clone of Leah running around. He shook his head and laughed again, "How does Gibbs get that boat out of the basement?"

* * *

Several days later Tony found himself at the local Target getting Jack his school supplies for his upcoming year in Kindergarten. Leah had left him a list and quite possibly threatened him with sleeping on the couch when she got back if he screwed it up.

Jack was picking out a backpack when he announced, "I know how Grandpa gets the boat out of the basement."

Grace, seated in the front of the bright red carriage, perked up. "Really? How?"

Tony watched as a broad, DiNozzo grin came over his son's face. "He has magic, Gracie," Jack said, brightly. "And when the boat is all done he makes it small enough to put in his pocket, carry it to the water and then puts it in the water and makes it big again!"

"Grandpa is a wizard?" Grace gasped, eyes wide with wonder.

"Better than a wizard, Grace! A sorcerer!" Jack exclaimed, grinning.

Nearby a middle aged woman with her two pre-teens looked over at Tony, skeptically. Tony quietly instructed Jack to pick out a back-pack. It didn't bother him that his son had a wild imagination, his parents encouraged it—besides, kids were supposed to believe like things in magic.

Jack picked out a Washington Nationals bag—Leah was going to be dismayed that it wasn't a Red Sox one—and put it in the cart. He picked out a Superman lunch box. "Daddy," he said, "do you have any magic?"

Tony chuckled as they moved along the aisle and glanced at the list in his hand. "Jack, if I had magic then we would be at the park right now and not on this shopping trip for school supplies. I would have snapped my fingers and filled this carriage."

"Daddy, you have magic," Grace said, sternly. "You make the monsters leave my bedroom every night!"

"And you found the missing Easter egg!" Jack added.

He wouldn't call those acts of magic, but Tony shrugged his shoulders and let them believe what they wanted. He tossed some markers and crayons into the carriage, a glue stick, pencil box—did one kid really need all of this to go to a private Kindergarten? Weren't they paying enough money already?

Jack helped him by getting the things he could reach. As they were picking out a new pair of sneakers for the little boy, he looked at his father thoughtfully, and said, "Dad, can we build a boat in our basement?"

Tony could only imagine what Leah would say to that. "Ah, well, I think that's a question for your mother," he replied with a smile.

* * *

"It's not magic, Jack," Theo's voice carried down the hall in the DiNozzos' house. "It's science!"

"Science?" Jack questioned.

Tim paused just outside the playroom. Tony had said that Jack and Grace were trying to figure out how Gibbs got the boat out of his basement all week. He wasn't surprised that they had enlisted the help of the twins, and Theo... being the science lover that he was... was obviously going to point to the more rational explanation of things. He chuckled. Jack and Theo were very much like their fathers.

Theo cleared his throat. "He must use something to raise his house off the basement and then tow the boat out. That isn't magic, using machines to raise a house—that's science Jack!"

Jack didn't sound so sure. "I don't know. Isn't it cool to think that Grandpa is a sorcerer? I think it is!"

He peeked inside the playroom. Grace and Samantha were playing the baby dolls away from the boys, not even listening in on their conversation. At the small table there were crayons and paper lying about and Theo had attempted to draw a picture of Gibbs raising the house off the foundation to get his boat out. Tim stepped into the room. "What are you guys up too?"

"Figuring out how Grandpa gets the boat out of the basement," Theo replied. "He wouldn't tell us. He said it was a secret."

"It's true, not even I or Uncle Tony know how he does it," Tim said.

"He never showed you how, Uncle Tim?" Jack questioned, giving him a look that Tony would give him in the bullpen when he doubted what Tim had said.

Tim shook his head. "Nope. Maybe he's saving that secret to share one day with you, Jack."

Jack eyes went wide with excitement. "Do you think he'll teach me magic? I've always wanted to learn magic!"

* * *

Gibbs heard the steps of his basement creak. He glanced up and saw Tony, case of beer in his hand, making his way down. "Leah home?"

Tony nodded and put the case on the workbench. "Yep. Kids were crawling all over her and asking her questions. Figured I'd let them have some Mommy time. And... truth be told... I needed a break. I love those kids, Gibbs, but man, are they exhausting."

He chuckled and opened a bottle of beer for himself and his former senior field agent. Gibbs would agree with that assessment. Jack and Grace were active and curious about their world—smart as whips—and when the McGee twins and Victoria Palmer tagged along, the five children were a force to be reckoned with. "Ah hell, Tony, that's all a part of being a dad. Those little ones tire you out but you wouldn't want it any other way."

"No. Those kids—and Leah—made me a better man," Tony confessed. He took a sip of his beer. "It's true what they say about the woman being the better half..."

"Not always true... think you and Leah are equally good people," Gibbs told him. "You balance each other."

Tony thought about this for a moment. Gibbs was probably right. When it came to their marriage or parenting, what one of them wasn't necessarily good at—the other picked up the slack. He smiled thinking about getting to spend some alone time with his wife when he got home that night. "Jack's still trying to figure out how you got the boat out of the basement, boss."

Gibbs laughed. "Yeah. Should have seen his face when we got to the harbor the other day to go sailing. His gears were turning. You might have a little investigator on your hands, Tony."

"Adventurer is more like it," Tony replied, thinking of Jack trying to scale a tree in their back yard a few weeks ago. "He's got quite the imagination."

"That he does," Gibbs agreed.

Tony took a sip of his beer and smiled, "Are you ever going to tell us how you do it? How you get the damn boat out of the basement?"

Gibbs laughed and went back to sanding for his next project. "Maybe I'll leave the instructions to you in my will. Until then, it's my secret."


End file.
